The Hypoocrisy… it Burns…

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Sigh. It’s hard to know what to say about the email furore that is currently raging across the 24h rolling news media.  Sunny Hundal has a pretty good stab at it, as does Sadie.

Probably Tom Harris has the right idea, with his if you can’t say something nice approach.

Still, I suppose I should say something, or I’ll get told I don’t say anything when it looks bad for Labour.

So here’s that something, after the jump.

All that follows notwithstanding though, this is a really fundamentally pointless, inside politics story. It’s the sort of thing I wish wasn’t news. So, I’d really prefer it if you were interested in what I have to say about Liquidity traps, because y’know, that stuff actually matters.

Yeah, thought so. Go on then.

1. Sending emails discussing the idea of spreading untrue negative stories about political opponents is a very bad idea indeed, on many levels.

I’ve no idea what’s in the emails, but given the way they’re being talked about, I think the PM said the right thing by saying it has no place in politics.

From a press officer’s point of view, getting caught doing something like this is a bit like being caught in bed with a woman not your wife. There’s no point making excuses or arguing the toss, it just makes you look worse. Apologise fully and try to move on.

(A caveat, I wouldn’t criticise anyone who was sent such an email. I get lots of emails suggesting stories. Some are good, some are bad. If I had to reply to every bad story with some stern remonstrance, I’d be very bored – and no, afaik, I didn’t get copied in.)

2. Mind you, I do want to point out that none of this ever happened. This was all discussed back in January, but to date no stories were spread, no smears were made. It didn’t happen. The only reason we know about it is because someone published private emails because they wanted to pour ordure on Damian McBride and Derek Draper. Is that totally OK?

To go back to my previous analogy, If you get caught sending an email saying you’re considering cheating on your husband, it’s bad, but it’s not as bad as actually cheating on them. If you discuss something and then don’t do it, you shouldn’t be treated as if you did it already. (Mind you, none of this contradicts point 1 above. There’s no mileage in fighting on the margins here.)

3. That said, what is really driving me up the wall is that it makes Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines into a campaigner for honesty and clean politics.

Arglebargle. Where to start with this madness?

This is the guy who has spent more time propogating political smears on the internet than anyone else. It’s the raison d’etre of his site. Paul Staines regularly smeared Gordon Brown in the foulest and ugliest possible ways, has regularly posted stories that were unsubtantiated and untrue (Journalists – If he says “name one” – there’s three on this page alone, and he did it live on Newsnight.).

I mean what can you say about a man who helped set up and fund “the Sunlight centre for open politics” but  kept that quiet when he publicised its work  (until other people exposed the links)?

The best you can say is that he has a fine sense of theatre. The worst is more libellous than anything in any email.

What’s more, Paul Staines political past, as right hand man to Thatcherite hatchet man David Hart, means that if there’s anyone in blogging who knows all about underhanded dirty politics, it’s Paul Staines. As he’s turned himself into the sewer of  British politics he’s been egged on by Tory MPs, supported by Tory bloggers, publicised again and again by lazy national journalists, and made a reputation for himself on TV. This is a bad thing.

For these reasons I can’t stand his site, though I understand he’s rather an amusing drinking companion, as many genial rogues are. So to have this walking puddle of dirty tricks and unfounded allegations being able to pose as a crusader against smears – well, it’d be laughable if it wasn’t so depressing.

The sad thing about this is that we’ve given his cesspit of a site both publicity and the moral upper hand, and that really annoys me.

(BTW, I pretty much exclude Iain from this calumny. I know Tim Ireland and other right thinking people have issues with Iain, but I’ve always felt he was a normal political operator, and could be treated with the same approach you’d use with any other openly propagandising right wing writer, like Hitchens or Oborne. In that he’s very different to Staines. When I’ve attacked him, he’s behaved pretty civilly. On the other hand, Nadine Dorries is a negative force in British politics, mostly because of her willingness to distort facts and evidence on a very important issue)

4. Finally, It is iinteresting that these emails came to light. I’d like to know whether they were leaked, whether emails were hacked. Frankly, the idea that it’s OK to hack email accounts is pretty disturbing, if that’s what happened. Again, this doesn’t contradict point 1) but it does matter.

I don’t want to be in a situation where Paul Staines thinks it’s OK to try and hack my email accounts. Not that he’d find much. Except the spam. lots of spam. It’s not as if he and leading Tory campaigners don’t have familiarity with sock puppets and other dodgy tactics.

So that’s what I think. Gosh, I think too much. I may come back and edit (11.30 I did, typos, for sense and clearing up references to when all this was discussed) and add more later on, but now I’ve got a date with a curry (which was very nice).

Full disclosure: I’ve met Derek once and like him. When he was setting up labourlist I wrote him a note about online campaigning. I’ve met Damian a few more times, and like him too. I wanted Labourlist to succeed so I’ve emailed Derek a couple of times with suggestions for stories, about Tory economic policy and their economic recovery panel. One of which turned into a memorably long and boring labourlist post, which actually i think is more interesting and important than this scandal. (But then, I think the views of Lars Svensson on Liquidity traps are more important and interesting thatn this story, which is why I only get a thousand or so readers a day).

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